


Complementary Colors

by LadyKnightSkye



Series: Our Hearts with Color Sing [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, BAMF Darcy Lewis, Beauty and the Beast Elements, F/M, Profanity, Redemption, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Various Soulmate Marks, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-04 06:46:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12163614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKnightSkye/pseuds/LadyKnightSkye
Summary: Sometimes, Soulmates don't meet under the best of circumstances.Sometimes, your Soulmate is a beast.





	1. Purple Night

**Author's Note:**

> So, I originally wrote my take on a Soulmate AU as a birthday present, but decided to go through all of my favorite Darcyland pairings using the same basic AU formula. Originally I was only going to do my top 3 favorite ones (ShieldShock, WinterShock, and WinterShieldShock) but I think this will end up spanning more than that.
> 
> Each entry will also probably be a bit different in tone. If you're a multi shipper like me and have read the first entry, don't expect the same light and fluffy tone this time around. However, I hope you enjoy!

It is a widely known and acknowledged fact that certain types of Soulmate Bonds are unbreakable. Whatever mystical force binds the two souls together is too strong – or whatever it is that keeps them apart is too weak – to keep the bond from either being unfulfilled or broken. People have tried and failed, learned what Bonds can be subverted or denied and which ones cannot. 

Sigils, Initials, and Words can be broken so easily, denied so completely. Those Bonds are light, almost ephemeral, but should be treasured when people are willing to follow them and give one another a chance.

Timers, Markings, and Strings are a bit stronger, but can still be broken. A zeroed out Timer can be ignored, skin can lay unmarked, and Strings can be cut with enough will. However, it is so difficult that most people find themselves orbiting the other person without thought. 

But there are three types of Bonds that simply cannot be ignored, cannot be denied, because as soon as they are fulfilled, the Mates fall in love. Irrevocably. Madly. Without heed for the consequences. Empaths and Telepaths are so far into each other’s minds that there can be no denial. They feel one another, hear one another in such a way that to deny their Bond would be sacrilege.

Finally, there are Colors.

Colors are so rare that before the Twentieth Century they were almost a myth – rarely fulfilled, rarely realized, those with Soul Colors were thought of as Souless, Blank, Bondless, without a Mate to make them whole. Then, technology improved, more of them found their other halves, and the world realized that there was a whole new type of Bond. They started Associations, started to find another more and more. 

Colors cannot be ignored when the world turns from black and white into vivid Technicolor, when the first thing in color a person sees is their Mate’s eyes. Their souls reach out and unlock the door that has been closed to them for so long, and love is instantaneous. Colors would bind their souls and bleed into every facet of their lives and beings and would not be denied.

As it happens, HYDRA really should have been paying attention to the latest in Soul Mate research, or they might have thought twice about their Asset.

~~

“Shit, shit, _shit_.”

Darcy ducked behind the desk, and prayed as she shakily tried to reload another cartridge into her Taser. Her rational mind tried to tell her that the reason the first discharge had done nothing was because the man was wearing leather currently warred with the rest of her that said emphatically that the man had taken the charge and kept coming because he was the freakin’ Terminator. _He had a God-damn metal arm._

She almost dropped her weapon when she heard the door burst open again. “The first target isn’t present,” a masculine voice barked. It sounded big and angry, and Darcy nearly wet herself with the realization that there were at least two bad guys she had to outrun. 

“The assistant is here,” a quieter voice replied. She’d have liked the sound of that voice if it didn’t belong to a man that was actively hunting her. 

Terror thrummed as more foot falls entered the lab. “Spread out,” Terminator said, “Take her alive. Be aware, she does have a Taser device.”

Darcy glanced left and right. She was crouched behind one of the desks in the data crunching section of the lab. There was a fire exit about twenty feet away, but she’d have to take a round about route, since the direct one would leave her exposed. She may not be a super secret spy, but Darcy wasn’t an idiot. If she could manage to desk hop, she’d only need to run the last five feet. The desks were also in a weird, zig-zag pattern, so she wouldn’t be too exposed as long as someone wasn’t looking right down the aisle at her. 

Carefully, she crawled to the next desk, thanking God they were the old fashioned kind with covered foot wells. However, her luck was epically, horrendously bad. At her third move, she came face to shins with the Terminator himself. Almost reflexively, she fired her Taser. Again, the contacts hit his torso, and he ripped them out without flinching. He began to lean down, and Darcy did the only thing she could think of. She threw the Taser at his face.

Amazingly, she actually managed to hit him. The heavy gun-shaped object smacked into the bridge of his nose, and she heard a small crack. He growled, and with an angry jerk, pulled off the goggles he was wearing. She heard the footsteps of the others making their way over, but her attention was held completely by the big man with the metal arm. He dropped the goggles at her feet and turned his gaze up to her. 

The moment their eyes met, Darcy felt all the air leave her body. Ever since she was a child, she had been color blind. She had been born that way, but at the age of ten she found out that it was because she had a rare breed of Soul Bond – Soul Colors. She hadn’t developed any other Bond, so her doctor pronounced her color blindness as being her Bond. She’d gone to a couple of events hosted for people like her, but had always struck out. 

Now, staring into eyes of a color she didn’t know the name to, she realized it was because her Soulmate was a _fucking assassin_.

~~  
The Soldier had never been able to see in color. He understood that this was a disadvantage in a world where people were described using the colors of their clothing and hair and eyes. However, he powered through it and his Handlers had long ago learned not to use colors to describe his marks. He was shown a picture, given a lecture on why this person or that was a threat to world peace, and sent on his way. 

His job was important. He served the people of the world by ensuring that they had a fighting chance. His targets this time were a scientist and her assistant. According to his Handler, they were threats to the peace. Dr. Jane Foster was actively trying to encourage alien invasions, and her assistant, Darcy Lewis, was culpable as well. For the good of the world, the two women needed to be stopped. 

Getting into their labs had been easy enough. The building’s security was laughable at best, and it had taken next no time for him to locate and infiltrate the correct lab. However, the doctor was no where to be found, and the assistant was in possession of a weapon. She had managed to shoot him twice, both times sinking the contacts of her Taser deep into the skin of his chest. The electrical shocks hurt, but he powered through with little hesitation. However, things went sideways when she actually threw her device into his face. 

He saw the crack snake across the lens, and growled at having to remove the goggles. They helped filter out some of the painful stimuli that being in the outside world created for him. The world was too bright, too loud, and he did not react favorably to it. Long ago his Handlers had mandated that he needed the goggles to help control his hyperactive sight. They clattered to the floor at her feet. The Soldier looked into the assistant’s eyes.

Pain.

Pain as he’d never before felt tore through his head, and the world turned from black and white to a kaleidoscope of hues that he had no names for, no way to process. Distantly, he heard the girl gasp, but the pounding in his head kept him from reacting to anything else. His training was being strained by the new stimulus, and when his training was tested, pain was the result. It was always the result. He nearly fell to his knees. He heard his men cry out to him, and the rattle of their weapons as they trained them on the woman. He knew that regardless of their mission parameters, if she was a threat to him they’d kill her.

And he couldn’t let them do that.

“No!” he barked, and looked up at them. They were all giving him wide-eyed stares, including the one called Rumlow. 

“The hell is wrong with you?” the big man said.

“The mission continues. She knows where Foster is.” The Soldier looked back to the girl, and felt something roiling through his gut. Worry. He couldn’t let them hurt her. Maybe if he deflected their attention . . . “Where is Dr. Foster?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, softly, hesitantly. “I . . . I really don’t know. Um, maybe . . .” Something flashed in her eyes, something cunning. “I think maybe she’s at her apartment? She said something about a shower.”

The statement rang true on the surface, but something in the Soldier knew that she was only telling a half truth. Foster was elsewhere, definitely not at her apartment. Lewis wouldn’t send them after her friend so easily. The others looked to him, but instead of calling her lie, he nodded. “We go there then.”

The three grunts filed out at his nod, but Rumlow hung back. “You going to take care of her?”

“Yes. She hurt me. I get her.” 

Rumlow was not a stupid man, but if he was suspicious he hid it well. He glanced down at her, and smirked. “Lucky bastard. I’ll send Jensen and Hall to the apartment. The rest of us will wait for you. You have ten.”

The Soldier snarled behind his muzzle, disgust flashing through him. He knew all about the tastes some of his comrades had, and they sickened him. Missions were to be completed promptly, with minimal fuss. He rarely “played with his food” as it were, and he looked down on the operatives who had that nasty habit. However, it worked to his advantage that he’d only been sent on a few missions with Rumlow, and none had involved women. The other man lived to taunt and tease his missions, and unsurprisingly this meant women would bear the worst of his cruelty. He was apparently under the impression that the Soldier was equally prone to rape. 

“You are done so quickly?” the Soldier asked, making his voice rise and fall in a quizzical manner. He could see his remark hitting its target as Rumlow’s eyes narrowed. Brock Rumlow was vain, and filled to the brim with toxic masculinity. Any challenge would be met violently, but the Soldier was banking on the man trying to save face.

“Fine,” the man growled, “Take twenty. But longer than that and she’s coming with us for some fun.”

He nodded, watching the other man leave the room with a silent snarl. He would enjoy eviscerating the man for his implied threat to Darcy Lewis.

~~  
Darcy had taken the moments of the assassins’ distraction to collect her thoughts. She had found her Soulmate, and he was . . . a monster. She watched the byplay, breaths coming fast and shallow. She felt like she couldn’t breathe correctly, like something was itching to burst out of her skin. She felt the need to scream and scream until her throat was raw and bloody, but there simply wasn’t the breath for it. 

As the other man left the room after giving her Soulmate twenty minutes in order to do whatever he wanted to her – _oh God, would he rape her?_ – when he finally looked back into her eyes. Again she froze, unable to look away. His eyes . . . they were empty, blank, but still so achingly beautiful that her heart stuttered in her chest. Oh God, Color Bonds fell in love at first sight . . . was she? Could she actually be . . . “No,” she whispered, her voice raspy and broken.

He knelt beside her, his powerful body coiling towards her with the grace of a tiger. His hands were clad in fingerless gloves, and he reached out to touch her cheek with his metallic hand. She flinched from it, expecting it to be cold, harsh, unforgiving. Instead, it was the same temperature as her own cheek, which it caressed with care. Those beautiful, dead eyes warmed as they followed the tips of his fingers down her cheek from apple to ear and along her jaw line. When they reached her lips, he touched her full bottom lip. Without thinking, Darcy licked her lips. It was a nervous habit, and she couldn’t decide if she was scared or turned on or both. The tip of her tongue grazed the tip of his index finger, and broke the spell that had woven itself around the two of them when she began to hack and gag. 

Gunpowder residue, it turns out, tastes like ass. 

“God, when’s the last time you washed it? Did you like, dip it in gunpowder and grease?” she muttered, frantically scraping her tongue against her teeth and lips in a futile attempt to get rid of the taste.

Oddly, something around his eyes lightened. He stood and offered her his hand. She stared at the metal appendage, and at the other one that held his wicked looking gun. “Come with me if you want to live,” he said.

She nearly burst into laughter then and there. He didn’t seem to realize that he’d made one of the most obvious pop culture references of all time, and one that had fit into her own name calling. She decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and avoided saying anything as she took his hand. He pulled her up, and moved towards the fire exit. He glanced back to the door, and something dangerous came back into his eyes. “We’ll probably only have a few more minutes,” he murmured softly.

She trotted along side him, her hand keeping a death grip on his. “Why?”

“Rumlow’s not an idiot. He’s going to check in and make sure its within parameters to allow me to have a woman. Once he reports in, we have five minutes tops before he’s back.” The big man pushed open the door. The leather of his gloves creaked when she tightened her grip. “He won’t be happy.”

“Not after you played him,” she muttered. He looked back, and nodded. 

“Now, we need to go down quietly. We took out security camera function to the building, but our steps can’t echo at all. Once he checks the lab, he’s going to look in the stairwell first. Keep to the wall. We’ll exit on the third floor and enter the parking garage.”

Darcy nodded, imagining the layout of the building in her head. Jane’s labs were on the fifth floor of the building, and the third floor was where the parking garage entrance was. She knew the stairs had an exit directly into the garage because she used this stairwell as an entrance and exit all the time to work. The building was a modest six storeys, with labs on each floor. They had gotten space here as part of a grant from Stark Industries, but the building itself was owned by a separate company. The attached parking garage was only three levels, but supplied more than enough parking for the researchers that called the building home. “Can we use my car?”

“Yes, for a little while.”

They descended slowly, the two flights taking most of the five minutes that he estimated they had. But, Darcy was proud at how soundless she was being. Usually she stomped down these stairs like an elephant. They slipped out into the parking garage, just in time to see the big meathead and the other three go stampeding back into the other entrance. “Shit,” the Rumlow guy growled loud enough for them to hear, “Pierce is going to have my ass if we find him balls-deep in that bitch.”

“Can’t fucking believe they won’t even let the Asset get laid,” one of the others replied. 

Darcy was ready to come out of the shadows fists swinging, but her Soulmate put a hand on her arm. “We make for your vehicle. Where are you parked?”

She pointed, her little Ford Escort sitting next to one of the big vans she guessed that they had come to raid the lab in. He nodded, and led the way. He didn’t crouch or anything, so she guessed the coast was clear. She unlocked the door, thankful that her keys and phone were in her pockets rather than her purse. He took them before she could slide into the driver’s seat, gesturing for her to get into the passenger side. She was tempted to snap an argument at him, but was silenced by the huge knife he whipped out. 

However, her flash of terror turned to understanding as she watched him efficiently slash the tires of the two vans. He even opened the back doors and slashed the spares they kept inside. With that done, he slid into her tiny two-door used vehicle, and adjusted the seat to his liking. He didn’t peel rubber leaving the garage, instead, he drove leisurely. When they left, he turned out onto the busy road, looking all the world like they were on their normal commute home. Just, their commute happened to be at midnight rather than five. 

“Call Dr. Foster,” he said, “Warn her.”

Darcy looked at him like he was insane. “You want me to what?”

“Call her. She needs to be warned. Tell her to go to Stark and the Avengers.” He glanced over at her, his eyes still a gorgeous contrast to the dark muzzle he still wore. “She’s in danger.”

“Why?” she asked, her fear and nerves finally overtaking all sense. She was tired, she had been terrorized and chased by the man who turned out to be her Soulmate, and motherfucking hell she was pissed. “ _Why are you being so God damn helpful now_?!” she screamed. “You’re the asshole who was sent out to fucking kill us!”

“You and Dr. Foster are my mission,” he said quietly, tranquil in the face of her typhoon of anger, “But the parameters have changed. I cannot kill you, and she is your friend, so I cannot kill her.” His eyes cut back to her. “Why can’t I kill you? Why can I see . . . colors now?”

She blinked. “Dude, you do know what this means right?”

“No.” He glanced back to the road. “I don’t. What have you done to me?”

Darcy couldn’t help but push. “What do you mean what did I do? Other than smack you in the face with my Taser.”

He took a ragged breath. “Why do I need to protect you? Why do I need to make sure that your every whim is met, every want met, every need taken care of? Why am I currently on the run from the organization that is my entire life? Why do I have the need to take you somewhere dark and private and strip you naked and make you scream in pleasure?” He shifted his hips a bit. His last question was asked quizzically. “Why do I have an erection?”

He was so earnest that it startled a laugh from her. “You really don’t know do you? Why you’re seeing colors?”

“No.”

She turned fully towards him, laying her head on the headrest. She examined him, her eyes traveling down. He wore dark clothing, his torso covered by straps of evil looking leather. Dark BDUs encased his legs. His hair was long, dark in color, contrasting with his pale, almost translucent skin. He was huge, muscular and taller than her own 5’4” frame by at least several inches. He was . . . still a bit of monster, but already, something else shown through his darkness. Jane should mean nothing to him, yet he had told Darcy to warn her friend. He was oddly considerate, for an assassin. “You’re my Soulmate.”

He blinked, and then looked back at her. “I do not have a Soulmate.”

She snorted. “Oh, yes you do. Trust me, she’s sitting right next to you. We are Bonded by Soul Colors. You gave me back my ability to see colors, and I gave you back yours.”

“We need to break this,” he said baldly. “Once you are given to the Avengers, I must return to my Handlers. I . . . can’t have a Soulmate.”

She laughed again, this time in bitterness. “Soul Colors can’t be broken or denied. Its love at first sight. That’s why you want to take care of me, why you’re challenging your, uh, Handlers, for me. According to the universe or God or whoever, we’re so perfect for each other that our Bond can’t be broken.” She felt tears begin to run down her face. “ _The universe thinks my perfect match is a monster_.”

She began to sob in earnest.  
~~  
Darcy Lewis did not see him shudder. She did not see him close his eyes and take in another ragged breath. She did not see his heart – a metaphorical organ that he had assumed that he did not possess – break into a million pieces, because she was right. If love was all of that, then he loved her with all that he was. He clenched his jaw, unsure if he should say anything more. Once upon a time he knew how to talk to dames –

A spike of pain nearly caused him to swerve off the road. “Jesus!” Darcy hiccupped, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” he replied quietly. 

She sniffed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “So, what’s your name?”

“What?”

“What’s your name? I mean, I can’t keep calling you Soulmate.”

The tone of her voice was a mix of anger, sadness, and resignation. “I don’t have a name,” he answered truthfully. “I am called the Winter Soldier, or the Asset if you prefer.”

She sat up a little straighter. “The hell?” she whispered. “Those aren’t names.”

“They are the only ones I have.” He looked for a good place to pull off. They would need to switch vehicles quickly. 

She was silent, and he resisted the urge to look over at her. He pulled into a crowded movie theater, and parked towards the back of the lot. He looked over at her, and pointed to her phone. “Call your friend. We’ll have to leave the phone in the car.”

She nodded, and dialed the number. “. . . Hey, yeah, Jane? You with Tony? Yeah? Good, stay with him. Someone’s gunning for us.” She glanced over to him. “I, uh, I’m okay. I got away. . . . What? No! No, stay with Tony! I’m okay. I’ll be fine.”

Something occurred to him. He reached out and tapped the hand holding the phone. She glanced at him again, and handed him the phone. “HYDRA lives,” was all he said. “Tell the Avengers that SHIELD is compromised.”

“. . . . Who the hell are you?!” 

He looked over at the woman sitting next to him. “Darcy will be safe. I promise.” He hung up the phone. “Come.”

Darcy looked like she wanted to argue, to rail at him, but then she shook her head and got out of the car. He got out, and gestured for her to come over to his side of the car. “We can’t take a car in the same parking lot.”

“Yeah, too obvious I guess?” she murmured. 

“We need to walk to a new lot. Preferably one a ways away from this one,” he replied. 

She nodded, but pointed to his face. “You’re going to need to take that off,” she said. He reared back, but she didn’t allow him to escape. She hooked her fingers around the edges of his muzzle, and pulled it off as gently as she could. The lights were bright enough in the lot that he could see her eyes widen and her mouth drop open slightly. “I . . . I wasn’t expecting you to be so pretty,” she finally murmured. 

He felt naked and exposed without his muzzle, but he realized that she was right. His combat uniform could pass for edgy clothing, but the muzzle would make him too notable. He would also have to leave behind his larger, more conspicuous weapons. The mission was to stealthily make their way to New York City, and the Avengers. His Handlers would expect him to keep his distance from them in accordance with his briefings, so running towards them would be the last thing they expected. However, his mission was now to protect Darcy, and if that meant putting himself in the hands of his executioners, then so be it. She had already let him know that she did not want him. His life was forfeit, but it was okay. She didn’t want to be bound to him, and he would give her her wish.

~~  
Darcy stood stunned. The man facing her looked nothing like she had imagined. Sure, she knew that her Soulmate had beautiful eyes and gorgeous dark hair, but she had half expected him to be completely disfigured beneath his mask. Why else wear it? However, the moment she’d hooked her fingers around the back edges and pulled it off, she’d realized how wrong she was. His skin was smooth, firm, whole, and when she’d gotten a good look at his face, her breath had been taken away. His jaw was firm and square, his chin had a pleasing cleft, and his cheeks were sculpted sharply. 

He looked down at her, his beguiling eyes no longer dead, but alive. She wished she knew the name for the color of them. “I . . . I wasn’t expecting you to be so pretty,” she murmured, unable to think of anything else to say. 

Another silent moment passed before he nodded, and took her hand in his flesh one. He was warm, and Darcy found herself moving in and allowing him to keep hold of her. The walked out of the lot, looking all the world like a young couple on a leisurely stroll. It was a Friday night, so they didn’t look too out of place. His arm would stand out, but Darcy was a champion bull-shitter. If needed she could spin one hell of a yarn. “So . . . you don’t have a name.”

“As I said before,” he replied softly, gently, “I am only referred to as the Winter Soldier or the Asset.”

“But there’s no way your mom put that on a birth certificate. Come off it, what’s your name?” she looked up at him, and caught a flash of pain in his eyes. 

“I told you, I am called the Winter Soldier or the Asset. Nothing else.” His voice was hard, harder even then when he’d spoken to the Rumlow guy that he seemed to dislike. 

“Sorry,” she murmured. However, something was roiling low in her gut. The longer she was with him, the more things didn’t add up. He didn’t act like a hardened assassin, not that she really knew any. It would be more accurate to say that he didn’t act like what she imagined a hardened assassin would. Not once had he really been rough with her, and this whole thing about not having a name was disconcerting. She understood codenames – come on, her best friend was ‘Mates with a guy sometimes called Iron Man for Christ’s sake – but the way he was talking was like he’d never been given a proper name. Like no one had ever cared enough to at least give him some form of affectionate tag. “Can I . . . Can I call you Winter?”

He glanced down at her, and cocked his head. “If you wish.”

She gave him a brilliant smile. She knew it was also a sad smile, but she figured that he deserved it. A part of her wanted to kick herself for falling so easily into this stupid, dangerious, deadly relationship, but another part wanted desparately to trust the universe and the Powers That Be. Maybe . . . maybe there was a larger story here that she needed to know before making any snap judgments. Maybe he wasn’t actually a monster. That first part of her screamed that _Beauty and the Beast_ didn’t work out in real life, that people didn’t change, that beasts always stayed beasts. She couldn’t risk herself, even though at her core, she knew it was too late. 

He’d menaced her, but as soon as he knew she was his, he’d protected her.

He was a big scary assassin guy, but he had only been sweet and gentle with her. Even his flashes of temper had been mild and only verbal.

He was distant and icy, but it only made her heart ache.

_God, she was so screwed._  
~~

The phone was ringing.

Steve lifted a groggy head, and felt like snarling. He had just gotten home after a killer mission, and had been enjoying his beauty sleep. A flash of amusement from another mind accompanied the realization that he was muttering aloud. He glanced down at the woman sprawled along the side of his body, her vivid hair a flag of blood across his torso. “Answer the phone, Steve,” she said in her husky voice.

“Answer the phone Steve,” he muttered as he scooted up and over. “Kick down the door Steve. Run down the hall and act like a battering ram Steve. Be my meat shield Steve.”

“Go down on me Steve. Yeah, right there Steve. Put that cock in me Steve.” She stretched, being sure to arch her back in such a way that her breasts were the only thing he could see. “You’re not the only one who could be a smart ass.”

He glared at her, and she only gave him a shit-eating grin in reply. He finally answered the phone. “Cap! Where the hell have you been?!”

Steve turned his eyes heaven-ward and thunked his head against the head board. He was in bed with his gorgeous, buck-naked Soulmate, and had to be bothered by fuckin’ _Tony_. “Yes?” he growled. “What do you want, Tony?”

“Hey, don’t take that tone with me!” the other man cried, “I’ve been calling for like, two minutes now!”

“You ever thought maybe I was busy?” Steve snapped.

“What, with Romanoff? You answered the phone, so obviously you weren’t doing anything.”

Steve felt himself blushing. He was getting used to the fact that the modern world was a bit more free and open about sex, but you know, he kinda didn’t want Tony knowing about how much they enjoyed tying each other up. “What do you want Tony?”

“So, just got an interesting call from Lewis, you know, Jane’s assistant/friend,” the other man said. 

“Yes?” Steve muttered, making a motion for Tony to keep going even though he knew the other man couldn’t see him. Natasha giggled.

“She said that someone is coming for Foster. Then a guy took the phone and told Jane that HYDRA is still alive.”

Steve shot straight up. This startled Natasha badly enough that she jerked back into a crouch with the knife she kept under her pillow clutched in her hand. He realized she was reacting both to his motion, and to his spike of fear. “What?” he said, his Cap voice harsh. He hit speakerphone, so Nat could hear as well.

“HYDRA. He also said SHIELD is compromised. Didn’t mention a name or anything, but I managed to get some footage from the lab. Turns out it was broken into, and Darcy Lewis is missing. Fortunately, I added some incognito security to Foster’s lab,” Tony said, his voice serious. “I emailed it to you. Take a look.”

Natasha had already pulled the MacBook out, and was pulling up his email. He was pretty sure he’d never told her his password before, but she was the Black Widow. He couldn’t help the burst of love and awe that went through him. She grinned as she turned it for him to see. The video loaded quickly, and the camera looked to be set up towards the back of the lab space. Lewis was sitting at a terminal, tapping away on a computer when the door opened behind her. She turned around, hand reaching into her handbag. A large man stalked into the lab, a rifle held loosely in his hands. He wore goggles and a face mask, and tactical clothing in all black. His left arm shown silver. Lewis reacted quickly, pulling out her Taser and hitting the guy square on the chest, but he simply stopped and looked down at the contacts. She took that moment to scramble behind another desk, but the man ripped out the contacts and kept going. Another man entered. 

“Hell, is that Rumlow?” Steve growled.

“So, the guy was right about SHIELD being compromised,” Natasha added. The video picked up Rumlow’s exchange with the other man. Then the rest of the team came in, and Steve recognized several STRIKE members.

“Oh, it gets better, keep watching,” Tony said, as the figures spread out. Lewis was moving, and Steve cringed when he realized that the poor girl was heading right for the first man. 

“Oh, it’s already great,” Nat muttered. “It’s _him._ ”

“Who?” Steve and Tony chorused as Darcy Lewis fired another shot into the guy’s chest. The man in black ripped out this set of contacts too, and Steve huffed a laugh as Lewis threw her Taser in his face. If it hadn’t been for his Nat, Steve would have definitely been interested in that little firebrand. 

“He’s a ghost,” Nat answered as she watched the man pull off his goggles with a growl. She pointed to him as he flinched, and Lewis gaped at him. “Ask anyone in the intelligence community and they’ll tell you he doesn’t exist.”

Steve didn’t like the flare of fear he felt from her. He also didn’t like hearing Rumlow order men to go kill Jane, or the implications Rumlow made as he exited the room. Brock was an asshole that Steve barely tolerated, a guy who generally made him grind his teeth in a desparate need to punch him in the face, but Steve hadn’t thought that Rumlow was really that much of a dirtbag. However, he finally understood what Tony meant by the video getting better.

The ghost knelt down, and with a gentlness that surprised both Steve and Nat, caressed Darcy Lewis’s face. She didn’t pull away in terror or scream, but instead seemed spellbound. That is, until she licked her lips and accidentally licked that metal hand. Her sputtering caused a flare of amusement in Steve’s chest. “That woman is going get herself killed one day,” he muttered, listening to her sass.

“Sort of amazed he didn’t finish his mission,” Natasha said as the man stood. “He . . . He’s always been unstoppable.”

“Who is he?” Tony asked as they watched the ghost stand. 

“ _Come with me if you want to live_.”

“Did he just quote _The Terminator_?” Steve asked. It had been on TV one day, and Tony had insisted that they watch it.

“Yes,” Tony said with a smug tone, “Yes he did. And I ask again, who is this guy?”

“The Winter Soldier,” Natasha murmured, watching him lead the woman out of the lab. “Credited with about two dozen political hits in the last fifty years.”

“So, do you think he’s the guy on the phone?” Steve asked.

“Jane says yes,” Tony answered. “Same voice. He also said that Darcy was going to be protected.”

Natasha blinked. “Wait, what is Lewis’s Soul Bond?”

Tony sighed. “Let me ask.” There was a moment of silence. “Jane says that Lewis has a Color Bond.”

The blast of surprise and awe and utter glee washed over Steve. Natasha was smiling and laughing, and he wasn’t sure why. “Uh, Nat?”

“Romanoff . . . _the hell_?” Tony piped up.

“The Winter Soldier helped train me at the Red Room,” she wheezed. “ _He once admitted to being colorblind_.”

There was complete silence from the other side of the phone. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Tony asked.

Her laughter was still ringing as she replayed the video. “Watch the way he acts after his goggles come off. He makes eye contact, and then his behavior changes. He tenses when Rumlow speaks, and he doesn’t relax until the rest of the men are out of the room. He’s gentle with her, and offers to protect her. Steve, sweetie, that’s what you do.”

“ . . . and Jane just reminded me that I do that to her as well,” Tony admitted. 

“All ‘Mates do. We just protect each other in different ways,” Nat added. “Lewis isn’t a fighter, she can’t do anything in this situation, but I’d bet good money that she’s more of an expert in emotion. Societal function. She’ll be the one reminding him that pulling a knife in public is bad juju, making sure he eats, that kind of thing.”

“So, what are we going to do?” Steve asked. 

“Meet me at Avengers Tower,” Tony said, “We need to get Jane behind the best security we can and figure out what we’re going to do from here.”


	2. Yellow Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion.

They ended up walking almost until dawn. Darcy’s legs felt like lead, but she didn’t say anything. Self-preservation dictated that she follow his lead. They kept to the shadows and alleys that if she were by herself, Darcy would never even think to use. A couple of times they were approached by young toughs – it was amazing how many a medium sized city like this one held – but one look at Winter’s arm sent them running. One guy did make an honest attempt to mug them, but Winter sent him packing easily. As the wee hours of the morning came, Darcy found herself leaning more and more on him. 

“We need to stop. We’ll be too conspicuous in the light of day,” he murmured.

“Yeah,” she slurred. “What ever you say.”

He looked down at her, and then swung her up into his arms. She squealed a little as he held her in a bridal carry. “Winter!”

“No. You’ll slow us down. We need to get to shelter before sunrise.” He strode down the street, and Darcy shut her mouth with a click. It was nice not to have to keep moving. It was nice to let him carry her along. She laid her head against his shoulder, and let herself relax. 

She woke sometime later as he set her down. They were in a small wooded area, and he had laid out a small bed of leaves. It was early summer, so the leaves were still very soft and alive. She realized that he’d made a rough bed for her. “Where are we?”

“A small wooded area in the city park, just off a couple of jogging paths,” he answered quietly. The bed had been made in a small ravine, and she realized that he’d set it in a depression in the wall of the ravine. “I can disguise us under some branches. It’ll look like a few dropped branches. No one should bother us here.”

“Oh,” she said inanely. She scooted closer to the wall, and then watched as he laid a couple of big branches over the little hidey hole. “Wait, what are you doing?”

“We need food and water,” he replied, “I’ll be back.”

“You’re not going to like, steal it are you?” she asked nervously.

A metal hand came back through the leafy canopy, showing her a wallet. “Lifted this from our mugger. Seems we weren’t his only marks tonight. We’ve got about two hundred in cash.”

“Good to know,” she said, stunned. “Cool.”

She laid down as he disappeared. She stared up at the leaves, wondering what the hell she was doing here. She couldn’t believe that she was actually sitting there, waiting for him to return. How crazy was she? Shouldn’t she be running for the hills? He was her Soulmate, but he wasn’t anything she’d dreamed of. According to twelve year-old Darcy, her Soulmate was supposed to sweep her off her feet, and they were going to get married as soon as they could with a big fancy wedding, and she was going to wear a dress in whatever color she liked best. He was going to be handsome, and kind, and awesome, and he wasn’t going to be a _God damn assassin_. 

However, reality smacked her in the face. The reality was, her Soulmate was an assassin, who apparently didn’t want her in the same way she didn’t want him. He’d already said that he couldn’t have a Soulmate, that they needed to deny the Bond so he could go back to his Handlers and she could go on her merry way. He hadn’t even thought he had one. Perhaps if she had been more well-rested she would wonder at that too, because there was no way that he should think that. The Mateless were a myth. The only way to be without a Soulmate was to lose one to death. But she didn’t wonder at it. Instead, she considered how she was going to explain to her mother that she had found her Soulmate but couldn’t bring him home at Christmas. 

She nearly burst into hysterical laughter, but she stopped herself before she dissolved into hysterics. She kept a hold of herself by taking deep breaths until she was calm, and nearly dozed off when she heard the snap of a branch. She tensed, but a soft voice called, “Darcy?”

She moved the branches aside, and looked to see Winter holding two large grocery bags. He set them down, and took off the canopy. She waited patiently as he put down the bags and then rearranged the branches to create their cozy little cocoon. It was tall enough for them to sit up, so Darcy found herself sitting crisscross-applesauce next to the Winter Soldier. He pulled out at least six sandwiches, doughnuts of several varieties, and two bottles of water. “I didn’t know which you’d like,” he said softly, “So I got one type of each. You can pick first.”

She smiled at him, a genuine smile. “Aw, you’re too sweet,” she said, and realized that she meant it. “Add gentleman to your plus column.”

He didn’t reply, but a small grin tugged at the corners of Winter’s mouth. She glanced over her options, settling finally on the turkey on rye. It looked to be the least questionable of the lot. She opened the packaging, and dug in with relish. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until he’d set the food in front of her. She ended up demolishing the sandwich, plus the ham and cheese he scooted in front of her before he polished off the other four. She cocked a brow at the sheer volume of food he was packing away, but she knew Thor, Steve, and Bruce. The big guys needed their calories. 

“Do I have many?” he asked softly, hesitantly. 

She held up a hand over her full mouth and carefully asked around the ham, “What?”

He cocked his head at her, those beautiful eyes trained on her with a great deal of intensity. “Do I have many pluses?”

She swallowed, and then cocked her head at him. “Amazingly, yeah, you do. I mean, still really freaked out about the whole HYDRA-assassin-was-ordered-to-kill-me thing, but you have to be the best date I’ve ever had. You don’t drive like a deluded maniac, you are a gentleman, you haven’t tried to take advantage of me once, and you know, you’re really hot. I think that at this point in our relationship the only thing keeping me from being in your lap and planning our wedding is the whole HYDRA-assassin-sent-to-murder-me thing.”

He shrugged. “I can accept that,” he said. “But we can’t get married. I have to go back.”

“Why?” she asked, realizing that the answer meant way more to her than it really should. She shouldn’t even be entertaining the thought of bringing him home for Christmas. What the hell was she going to tell her mother? Here’s my Soulmate, he works for HYDRA? Nonna and Papa are gonna _love_ him. Her mother was a non-observant Jew, and the daughter of survivors of the Holocaust. Hell, forget Christmas with the Lewis relatives, what the hell was Hanukkah going to be like with the Gottlieb relatives?

His eyes turned dark. “They would hunt us until they found me. I am too important to lose. Then, they’d hurt you. I am the Asset. I cannot have a Soulmate. I have to stay Mateless.”

“So, where does this leave us? You just gonna walk away?” she asked, her voice tight and harsh.

“I have to,” he replied, steel bleeding into his voice. “I will take you to the Avengers. Stark and Captain America will protect you.”

Darcy pursed her lips, but chose not to start an argument. Dammit, she _had_ fallen. “Okay.”

After they finished polishing off the food, Winter gathered it all up and quickly went back out to throw it away. He returned just as the world began to go gray again – this time because of the approaching dawn. Darcy had already laid herself out along the wall of the ravine, snuggling deep into her sweater, thankful that her fashion choices ran towards the cozy. It was chilly, and even though the sweater top was three-quarter sleeved, it was better than nothing. Her arms were pulled inside the garment, and she huddled with her knees to her chest. 

When Winter returned, she stretched her legs back out, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to fit if she stayed curled up. He laid down beside her, laying on his back. She shivered a bit, and he turned his head towards her. “Are you cold?”

“Yes,” she murmured.

He nodded. “Come here.”

She hesitated, and almost refused to move. Then, she realized that right now all she was doing was cutting off her nose to spite her face. She crawled closer to him, and he lifted up his metal arm to allow her to curl up to his side. He was a furnace, and even through the unforgiving leather she could feel the heat of his skin. She looked up at him as he moved to his side, curling his big body around hers. She was cradled by his left arm, the metal warm but hard against her back. He leaned over her, his lips inches from hers. He was staring into her eyes, and she felt her mouth gaping open a bit. She could feel the heat of his breath over her face, and she licked her lips nervously. “Good night,” she finally said, unable to take the tension.

Again, she broke the spell, but as before, Winter was a good sport about it. He smiled a little. “Good night,” he said as he laid back, and cuddled her close. Her head was pillowed on his metal shoulder, but that didn’t stop Darcy from falling asleep quickly.

~~

“What do you mean that’s his Soulmate?”

Brock Rumlow tensed at the tone of his boss’s voice. He could see his team doing the same out of the corner of his eye. That steely tone never brooked good things. Usually, someone ended up with a bullet between the eyes, and a phone call to unsuspecting family about some horrible accident. As it was, the only reason that the other person was not currently quaking in his boots was because the person on the other end of the conversation wasn’t actually a person anymore.

“I have already told you,” Arnim Zola replied in his trademark exasperated tone, “that woman is his Soulmate. Based on my researches, his Mateless status was incorrect. The Winter Soldier’s Bond is through Color.”

“And a lovely thing to know,” Alexander Pierce barked.

“I had already made the addendum to his files _weeks_ ago! You did not bother to heed them!” Zola returned.

“And who the hell needs to know about his Soulmate status!” Pierce shot back. “His Mate would have been in a nursing home by now, if not the grave!”

Zola laughed, unkindly. “You are a _fool_. Johann would be putting a bullet in your chest right now for your stupidity!”

“Like I care about your Soulmate’s histrionics!” Pierce muttered.

“What you fail to take into account is the fact that science knows nothing about Soul Bonds. We collect empirical data on phenomena we do not understand and call it research, but we do not know! It is folly to assume that his Soulmate is gone or a non-entity, not when the mechanism behind Bonding is unknown. His Mate could have been a girl in the 40s, or fate always knew he would end up in this time, and planned accordingly. What’s worse, is you had all the information about this Darcy Lewis at your finger tips, and _you did not bother to take into account her status_! You tempted Fate, Gott, Whomever else you could believe in by sending an assassin with _Soul Colors_ to kill a woman who also has _Soul Colors_! The loss of the Asset is purely your fault!”

Rumlow winced, watching Pierce’s face mottle into a red mask of rage. “Now see here you piece of shit!” Pierce bellowed, “You can hand down all the proclamations you want, the fact is you didn’t know either, so don’t pretend like you would have!”

“I advised caution! You gave none!” Zola roared, his voice causing the speakers in the wall to rattle. The room was quiet, all of them shocked by his outburst. Zola never yelled. Never.

Pierce looked away, his face fading back from red to his normal ivory skin tone. He’d been a looker once upon a time, sought after by the ladies and not a few men. Rumlow envied only his power though – with enough power came enough adoring women to fill his bed. “. . . What matters is that we figure out how to get him back.”

“The Asset will be brought to heel,” Zola said, back to his placid self, “His training will eventually lead him back to us.”

“Insight goes live in a week. We need him now. I think Nick is starting to suspect something,” Pierce replied. 

“Then we hunt the girl,” Rumlow finally piped up. Pierce and Zola turned their attention to him, but he realized too late that that was probably not the best idea he’d ever had. 

“You’ve done enough,” Zola muttered. “I cannot believe you would allow such base desires to dictate behavior on a mission! Your irresponsibility allowed the Asset the chance to escape!”

Rumlow straightened up. He was half tempted to try to cover his ass, but he knew that it was probably better to just admit his fault in the matter. Hopefully, it would keep him from getting his ass handed to him later. “I admit that I let him out of my sight. However, nothing in my briefings told me that he wasn’t allowed to be left alone, or that he was denied having his fun. You also said that he was being terminated after Project Insight went live. I figured it couldn’t hurt to let the poor guy have one last hurrah.”

Pierce and Zola rolled their eyes in unison, and it should have been an amusing sight. Rumlow refrained from cracking a joke because he understood just how high the shit he was in went. “In the end, fault means shit. We need to get him back,” Pierce said. “And your idea is the best we’ve got. Just don’t screw this up.”

“Yes sir!”

~~  
Winter – he was beginning to acknowledge the name in his own head – woke sometime after noon. He guessed he’d had about six hours of rest, which was more than enough for his purposes. He looked up, and realized that he could see the colors of the world around him much more easily in the light of the sun. Oddly, his vision wasn’t being overstimulated. He blinked several times, but he didn’t experience the stinging headache that usually accompanied not wearing his goggles. He wondered if it were a symptom of his increasing deterioration. Handler Zola had warned him that he was nearing the end of his useful life.

A small sound drew his attention to the woman sleeping beside him. She’d curled around him in her sleep, one leg thrown up on his. It was uncomfortably close to his erection, and he marveled at it. He’d never woken with an erection before, but then again he’d never been sexually attracted to woman before. She was beginning to stir, and he knew they would need to venture out soon. Darcy continued to mutter as she dragged herself from slumber. “. . . This is the worst bed I’ve ever slept on.”

“I don’t know,” he replied in his sleep rough voice, “My companion isn’t half bad.”

She finally lifted her head, giving him an odd look. “Well, well, well, look whose smooth as fuck?” she replied. She glanced up at the canopy of their bower, and smiled. “The leaves are so pretty.”

He followed her gaze. “They are.”

“Green.” She was smiling.

“Hmm?” he replied.

“The leaves. They’re green. Trees have green leaves.” She reached up and touched one. “I always wanted to know what green looked like.”

He reached up, and twitched aside the leaves so that he could stare up into the tree canopy above. A snatch of sky peeked through, and he gasped in realization. The sky was only a few shades darker, but it was the same color, he was sure. “Your eyes are blue!” he breathed, looked back at Darcy. 

She smiled brightly, her face radiant even though her hair was a rat’s nest, and her skin was pale and bruised. “I could have told you that if you’d asked. My mom and dad could see color just fine.”

He returned her grin. “I didn’t think about that, honestly.”

Darcy glanced up at the sky herself, and then back at him. “Your eyes are blue too,” she said, her smile continuing. 

“Yeah? No one ever told me,” he answered, watching her smile falter.

“. . . Do you like it? What you do?” she asked solemnly.

He turned his head to look back at the sky. “. . . It’s necessary. Someone has to do it.”

“But why?” she pressed, “Why HYDRA? They’re . . . they’re bad guys!”

Winter squeezed his eyes shut, a headache pounding behind his eyes. “Because, I . . . They . . . They tell me? They made me. They are all . . . All I’ve ever known.”

Darcy leaned up on her arm, and reached for his cheek. Gently, she pulled his face towards hers. “Do you remember anything before them? Anything at all?”

Hazy images rose up, but they were only more of what he was used to. Grey walls, bright lights, and impassive faces. The only person constant in the foggy recollections was Handler Zola. “No. I have always been with HYDRA. Always been with Handler Zola.”

She squinted. “Zola?”

“Yes. And now I work with Handler Pierce.”

Darcy worried her lower lip, and her eyes were dark with speculation. “Do you know Handler Pierce’s first name?”

“Alexander,” Winter replied. “He introduced himself as Alexander. He . . . He’s not the worst Handler I’ve ever had.”

“Alexander Pierce . . .” Her eyes widened. “Is he an older dude? Like in his fifties-sixties? Red-head?”

“Yes,” he answered. “Do you know him?”

“Shit,” she said sitting up. “Shit. Shit.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked softly, sitting up himself.

She was glancing around wildly, her face paler than before, and her lips drawn into a fierce frown. “We have to get to the Avengers ASAP! I know Tony’s itinerary, and he’s giving that snake a tour of Avengers Tower in three days! We have to warn them!”

Winter nodded, and he moved aside the branches. “Come, we can be there in less than a day.”

~~  
Steve looked up when Pepper entered the conference room with a small smile. The Avengers had all assembled – sans Thor – and had been brainstorming their best course of action for several hours, and all were a little worse for wear. Seeing Pepper made them all smile since she was trailed by Rhodey carrying a tray of coffee, and soothing tea for Bruce. As the drinks were passed around, Pepper specifically walked up to Steve. “Good afternoon Steve. I have something for you.”

“Oo, is this what I think it is?” Tony piped up. “The thing from the Smithsonian?”

Pepper cast him a grin. “Yes it is.”

Tony pointed to Pepper, and gave Steve a huge smile. “Pep here deserves an award for what she’s been up to here lately, Rogers. She managed to get the Smithsonian to give up some artifacts. Seems she’s taking a page from Egypt’s book and claiming property rights.”

Steve cocked a brow, but suspected he knew what was in the box. All of his belongings had long been donated to the museum, including all of his personal photos. He’d asked the Smithsonian after the Chitauri incident to give him his things back, but they’d been curiously recalcitrant to do so. The only thing he’d been able to finagle was a picture of his mother and father taken on their wedding day. Natasha loved looking at it – she didn’t have any pictures of her parents to share, and she said that he looked a lot like his dad. 

The box Pepper set down was a large one, and he realized that it was mostly packing fluff. “Thanks, Pepper. You didn’t have to do this.”

She snorted. “It’s all your stuff. The Smithsonian doesn’t have a right to it because it was gifted while you were missing. I let them keep the clothes and shoes, but I insisted that other personal effects be returned.”

He grinned, and continued to unpack the box. Out came two sketchbooks he’d been working in from before even his enlistment. A small bag revealed two golden wedding bands – his parents’. He handed those to Natasha. She cocked a brow. “This supposed to mean something Rogers?”

“Only if you want it to,” he replied. 

“Good,” she said, before slipping the thinner band onto her left ring finger. She took his left hand and slipped the bigger, thicker band onto his finger. His father had been a large man too, and it turned out that the ring fit. The others laughed at his blush. Nat only smiled like the cat that had eaten the canary.

Steve decided to continue exploring the box, and lifted out a framed picture. His blush faded as sadness set in. The frame held a photo from when he’d graduated high school, next to his best friend. Bucky’s face was young, God so young, as he smiled for the camera. Steve touched that face, and heard a quick gasp. Suddenly, disbelief and awe roiled through his Empathic Bond. “Nat?”

She pointed to Bucky. “Who is that?”

“This? It’s Bucky. You know, Bucky Barnes? My best friend? Have you never seen a photo of him before?”

She shook her head. “Remember, I’ve never gone to the exhibits with you.”

“Or been educated in the American school system,” Tony piped up. “Your faces are plastered all over textbooks dealing with World War II.”

“Or that,” Natasha acknowledged. “I’ve never seen a picture of Bucky. You’ve never felt the need to show me, and I’ve never felt the need to look. But . . . He’s . . . I’d say its impossible, but I’m in a room with Captain Propaganda, Tin Man, One Trick Pony, and Dr. Jekyll.”

“Hey,” Clint yelped, “Trick Ponies are awesome, okay?”

“Who is he?” Bruce asked, pushing for the answer to Nat’s enigmatic claim.

She looked up into Steve’s eyes. “That’s the man who shot me in Odessa.”

Steve froze. Completely. His chest painfully constricted, his limbs trembled, and he felt short of breath. “That’s impossible. _He fell_.”

“ _They never found a body_.” She was staring into his eyes earnestly. “You said yourself that Arnim Zola had tortured him. Experimented on him. What was Zola’s ultimate goal?”

“. . . To create a perfect copy of Erskine’s formula,” Steve breathed. “Oh my God, you mean this entire time . . . Bucky was alive?”

“Whoa,” Tony said, “Who is the man who shot you in Odessa?”

“The Winter Soldier,” Clint replied. “You told me about him. You’re saying that Steve’s friend Bucky is the Soldier?”

“Yes,” she replied with no hesitation. “I remember his face perfectly.” She let loose a small laugh. “All of us little Widows had crushes on him. He was . . . Curiously sweet with us. When he wasn’t training us to kill one another.”

“He had a little sister,” Steve whispered. 

Nat laid a hand on his arm. “That would explain it,” she whispered. 

“Sir,” JARVIS suddenly said, startling everyone in the room. “We have a situation.”

“What’s up, JARVIS?” Tony called.

A video flashed up on the conference room screen. Jane had chosen that moment to walk in, and her small shriek went nearly unnoticed. “Darcy!”  
~~

She tried to stop crying as she stood at the reception desk, but it was really, really hard to. The last six hours had been hard. They’d managed to steal a car right outside the park they’d spent the night in, and gotten here in record time. However, as soon as they’d pulled to the curb, Winter had taken one look at her and said, “Get out.”

“What?” she’d asked, unsure what was going on.

He had looked down, and she had realized that he was doing all he could to avoid her eyes. “Winter?”

He looked up then, his eyes tortured. He reached out with his flesh hand and gently cupped her cheek. He pulled her head forward, and she found herself hoping against hope that he would kiss her. Instead, he touched his forehead to hers. “We both know how this has to end. You have to go to the Avengers, and I have to go back to my Handlers. We can’t be together Darcy.”

The tears had started then. “No.”

“Yes,” he replied harshly. “You have to get out and go to them. We aren’t meant to be.”

“Yes we are!” she had cried. “The universe says so! We’re Soulmates Winter! Soulmates!”

“And I’m a monster!” he had roared; the one time she’d heard him raise his voice. His eyes had shown wetly, and his voice cracked. “You said so yourself. I’m a monster who works for the bad guys. We don’t get the girl; we don’t get the happily ever after.”

Suspicion flashed through her. “What are you going to do?”

His eyes hardened. “I’m going to stop them. For you. Because if you’re the type of person they’ve been sending me out to stop . . . then everything I’ve ever done is wrong.”

“Please,” she whimpered, “come with me. Don’t do this.”

“Go,” he said again, “or I’ll shove you out myself.”

Darcy knew he’d do it to, so she’d complied with his commands. Out she went, and in through the lobby doors, and now she was standing here at the front desk of Avengers Tower, shivering and crying and looking like a total bag of ass. When a feminine shriek of her name snapped her attention to the elevator bank to her left, the tears began to flow freely. Jane all but tackled her as they embraced. “Darcy, are you okay?!”

She nodded, and the older woman led her back to the elevator where the Black Widow and Captain America waited. The two Avengers stood as a unit, and Darcy briefly remembered that they were Soulmates. The thought sent her off into another spate of violent tears. “Darcy, what is it?” Jane asked again as the elevator doors shut.

“He was my Soulmate,” she answered brokenly.

Suddenly, a warm hand descended on her shoulder. She looked up into the blue eyes of Captain America. His eyes were almost the same shade as Winter’s. “Ms. Lewis, are you referring to the Winter Soldier?”

She nodded, a sob escaping. “Please, you have to help him. He’s going back to them.”

The Widow and the Captain shared a look. “We’ll do what we can,” the Widow answered in her husky voice.  
~~  
An hour after she had arrived found Darcy showered, changed into new clothes, and sipping coffee in Jane and Tony’s penthouse. She felt numb and hollow, and even though she could still perceive color, the world felt like it had grayed a bit around the edges. “Ms. Lewis?” a proper sounding British voice inquired.

“Yes?” she said, glancing up. Tony had already waxed poetic about JARVIS, so she was aware of the AI.

“You have a call. Would you like to take it?”

“Who is it?” she asked, setting her cup down and reaching for the phone. 

“He does not say. Normally I would deny such calls, but he was insistent that he speak to you. A matter of great importance, he said.”

She picked up the receiver. “Let me talk to him.”

“Hello? Is this Ms. Darcy Lewis?” the voice on the other side said. It was an unassuming voice, pleasant and quiet. And German accented. 

“Who is this?” she asked harshly.

“I’m glad to see that Mr. Rumlow did not succeed in getting to you before you reached the Tower. However, the same cannot be said of your Soulmate. The Winter Soldier is back in our custody.”

She stood without thought, and her voice was a growl as she replied. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I am Arnim Zola, Ms. Lewis.”

Her blood ran cold. “That’s impossible. He died thirty years ago.”

“My organic body did,” the man answered, “But my mind did not.”

Something that Winter had said resurfaced. “You’re Handler Zola aren’t you?”

“Yes, yes I am. The Winter Soldier has been speaking of me hasn’t he?” Zola answered. “Good. He always was my greatest creation.”

“You know, I called him a monster. Now I see the truth, you’re the monster.” She was nearly ready to ask JARVIS to contact Tony when the next thing out of Zola’s mouth registered.

“I will tell you were he is.”

She stopped, her mouth gaping open. “Run that by me again?”

“I will tell you were he is so that you can retrieve your Soulmate. All I ask is that you only bring Captain America and the Black Widow with you. No one else.”

“And why should I trust you?” she snarled.

“Because I was bound by Soul Colors.”

That stopped the tirade Darcy was about to unleash. That one sentence held a world of pain and hurt so large that she couldn’t conceive of what he had to have gone through to earn it. “You had a Soulmate?”

“Everyone does, ja? A perfect complement, a complementary color if you will. I always thought of myself as being particularly green. Appropriate since my other half was the Red Skull himself,” Zola said wistfully. “But you . . . you are yellow. Wonderfully yellow to complement the Winter Soldier’s purple, I should think.”

“You and Johann Schmidt? But, you were _Nazis_.” She felt dizzy at the implications of two homosexual Nazis. That was the biggest oxymoron she’d ever heard in her life.

“Fate is a bitch, as they say now,” Zola said in way of reply, “and I was not a Nazi myself. Not at first. I was merely a brilliant scientist who was colorblind and Mateless. One day I looked into the dark eyes of a man and the world became colorful. I had been . . . so happy. Johann . . . not so much. He was committed to power, not the party, but to gain power he had to deny our status. He did not allow me any intimacy. He always promised . . .” Zola had to stop, his voice choked with emotion, “He always promised that once the world was his, we could be together as nature meant us to be. No brown shirts telling us our love was forbidden and wrong, that we were worthless to society because we could not breed.”

“Why are you telling me this? Why are you . . . helping me?”

There was a sigh from the other end of the phone. “Because I originally took Sergeant Barnes because he was Mateless. I wondered if perhaps that was part of Erskine’s success – you know we thought the Captain was Mateless as well – and he did take my version of the serum very well. And then what luck, but he fell into the Russian chapter of HYDRA’s hands when he had his unfortunate fall. I was always quite fond of him, my dear Winter Soldier. SHIELD didn’t even know that they were allowing me to work with him when they sent me to Germany all those years ago. I designed him, everything about him, because he was to be my instrument of vengeance upon the world.”

“Because you never got to live with your Mate,” Darcy murmured, understanding dawning. 

“Yes, because I was Mateless too,” Zola said quietly. “I wanted a weapon against a world that I hated. I became HYDRA, moved it forward, grew the two heads from it’s stump because I hated every person in this world that got to love their Soulmates. Let HYDRA take it over, let HYDRA raze it to the ground, I didn’t care. My weapon would be methodical, calculating, cold. And he was perfect.”

“You made him into a monster,” Darcy whispered. 

“Yes, I did. Then, lo and behold, came Holst’s paper on Soul Colors in 1974. Two years before I died, I found that I might have condemned an innocent man to an eternity of winter because of my own hate . . . and by then he had become a part of me. He was me, and I could not . . . I thawed him, and reprogrammed him. His trigger words will always snap him into the perfect Winter Soldier state, but I had to face that perhaps one day he would find his Soulmate. I had denied him that, and I realized that I could never truly live with myself if I continued to deny him that bliss. I treasure my time with Johann, even though it brought me so much pain. I realized in 1974 that I had made peace with his death, and could not condemn someone else to that pain. So, I built in a failsafe on the off chance that he did find his other half.”

“A failsafe?”

“As I mentioned, there are trigger words that put him into a state of complete obedience,” Zola explained, “as well as two fail safes. The first is ‘Sputnik’ which deactivates him – causes him to go unconscious. I will teach you the second because it will catapult him out of the obedient state without loss of consciousness. You will need it.”

“And why will I need Captain America and Black Widow?” she pressed.

“Because your Soldier will need help to cauterize this head of HYDRA.”  
~~  
It had been hell trying to convince everyone that she had to go with Captain America and the Black Widow, but fortunately, the good Captain backed her up. “If Zola gave her the deactivation code, then she needs to go.”

“Plus, the Soldier probably won’t harm her,” the Black Widow said. “And between me and Steve, we should be able to keep her safe.”

So here the three of them were, standing in front of a bunker that shouldn’t have been there. The coordinates that Zola had given Darcy was the camp that Captain America had trained at, Camp Leigh. The first thing the Captain had done was point out that the bunker was not in the proper place. “So, how do we get in?” Darcy asked.

As if her words were the secret password, the doors opened. However, what greeted them was most definitely not a good thing. A large body shot out of the opening, dark hair streaming, and a flash of silver streaked towards Captain America’s head. The super soldier in blue brought his shield up just in time to catch the blow. Metal rang as the fist connected with the shield. Black Widow sprang to the side, grabbing Darcy and slinging her as far from the action as she could. Darcy hit the ground hard, her skin scrapping against the dirt painfully. She scrambled back, and watching in mounting horror as the two Avengers fought Winter to a standstill. 

Cap threw a punch that thudded against Winter’s torso, but the shorter man didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he knocked Cap’s helmet off with a hard blow to the other man’s skull. Cap kept coming though, and Black Widow kept goading Winter by hitting him with her Widow’s Bites. Darcy realized that now was the only chance she was going to get. She hoped Zola wasn’t kidding around with her. “Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes! I love you!”

Winter didn’t respond. Cap did though. His head whipped around so fast that she almost heard the crack of bone as he gaped at her. She hadn’t told anyone the fail safe code, so it was the first he’d heard of it. Between his reaction and Winter’s non-reaction, Cap ended up on his ass as another punch slammed into his unprotected jaw. “Steve!” the Black Widow cried, her angry face turning towards Darcy. “We have to neutralize him. It’s the only way.”

“No!” Darcy cried. Her mind whirled as she tried to figure out why Zola’s fail safe didn’t work. Maybe . . . She didn’t give herself time to think. She crouched down and grabbed a rock. Thank God for middle school softball as she sent the stone hurtling through the air, and it connected with a sharp crack on Winter’s arm. She’d been aiming for his head, but maybe the arm was a better place. Either way, it got the reaction she wanted. He turned towards her, and began stalking towards her. The Black Widow took that moment to dive to Captain America’s side, checking him over. 

As Winter strode towards her in a murder strut that would have been sexy under different circumstances, she tried again. “Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, I love you.”

He didn’t stop.

A slow clap began behind her, and Darcy whirled to find herself face to face with Secretary Alexander Pierce. The older man was clapping, his face set in a melancholy expression. “I applaud your quick thinking, Ms. Lewis, but unfortunately, Zola’s little tinkering was discovered back in the 80s. Your cute little confession won’t do anything. We had just enough time before you came to correct his memory. The Winter Soldier does not have a Soulmate.”

Darcy felt arms of steel wrap around her, and tears begin to fall from her eyes. “No,” she whispered. 

“Darcy!” Cap cried. 

“I’d stop right there if I were you,” Pierce replied. He held up a wicked looking pistol. “Mr. Lewis will be coming with us.” Men poured from around the bunker.

“What do you want her for?” Black Widow asked.

Despair threatened to swallow her, but Darcy Elizabeth Lewis was a fighter. She wasn’t going to give up. _She wasn’t going to give up_. She turned her head, and found herself looking at Winter’s jaw. “Leaves are green,” she whispered as Pierce postured towards Cap.

Winter stiffened, but she pressed on. “Black Widow’s hair is red.”

She felt him move his head around, relieved to see that he was looking back to the woman behind him. “My hair is brown,” she continued. She could feel his breath against her cheek. “The sun is yellow.”

His breath did not leave her cheek. “What . . .” he asked quietly, “What color are your eyes?”

“Blue,” she said, “Like yours.”

“What . . . What is my name?” he breathed.

“Winter.” She finally had enough slack in his grasp to turn to look into his eyes.

He cocked his head. “But you’re the one who looks like Snow White,” he said. “Eyes as blue as sapphires, hair as dark as ebony, and lips as red as a rose.”

“Who told you about Snow White?” she pressed. Maybe . . . Maybe the fail safe had worked, just not immediately.

“My . . . I saw it in theaters.” He blinked several times, and a pained look came over his face. “I . . . I remember something before HYDRA.”

“That’s it!” she whispered. “ _Remember_.”

“I don’t think so,” Pierce snapped. “ _Sputnik_.”

Winter dropped like a rock. Darcy knew intellectually that he was only unconscious, but her scream couldn’t be stopped. She fell to her knees, and pulled his head into her lap. “Winter? _Winter_!”

A gun was pressed to her forehead. “As touching as this is, it’s time to put an end to it. But I’ll be merciful. You can give him one last kiss goodbye.”

At that moment, Darcy finally understood Arnim Zola. Before, his story had been tragic in a distant way, like hearing about someone’s beloved aunt dying. Now, now it was fresh and immediate, and she knew the pain he felt. To find his other half, to realize that that half was far from perfect, and to face the fact that he would never get to share his life with his Mate. To face a lonely existence without the person he loved so completely, almost against his own will. For all the other things he was, Darcy could understand his transformation from morally ambiguous scientist into megalomaniac. 

~~  
Love is beautiful. Love can inspire the greatest works of art, the greatest pieces of music and literature, and the greatest acts of human kindness. Love can move mountains, make people be more than they ever thought they could, can shine a light even in the darkest of tragedies. Darcy loved Winter, loved him enough even from their first meeting to lay to rest her anger once she understood that he was no more responsible for his actions than a young African or Syrian boy forced into fighting a war at the age of seven. But love is also dark. Love lost can twist any soul into a caricature of itself, turn any kind heart into a miserly curmudgeon. 

Love can make Darcy Lewis pull one of Winter’s wicked looking knives form its sheath.

Love can make Darcy Lewis launch herself at Alexander Pierce, causing the taller man to stumble in shock.

Love can make Darcy Lewis sink a blade so deep into sternum and heart that the coroner later had to saw through the knife blade to get it out.

Love can make Darcy Lewis scream into Alexander Pierce’s face as he dies on the end of the knife, all thoughts of human compassion gone.

Love can make Darcy Lewis then crawl back to her Soulmate, her heart utterly broken and blood staining her hands. 

~~  
Steve and Natasha watched the young woman with wary eyes. While Pierce had been distracted by her and the Soldier, they’d taken care of the STRIKE team. It had been so satisfying to punch Rumlow in the face, but Steve felt tears gathering in his eyes at the sight of his friend laid out on the ground, his Soulmate curled around his body. He wouldn’t have guessed that Darcy Lewis had it in her to kill, but he found he wasn’t all that surprised. The universe knew what it was doing assigning her to be the Winter Soldier’s Mate.

“Bring them inside,” a voice said from behind them.

Nat and Steve whirled, finding no one behind them. The STRIKE team was tied up, and all of them were still unconscious for that matter. “Please, calm down, Captain.”

Finally, the voice registered. “Zola.”

“Yes. Bring the Soldier and his Mate inside. I found out about the change in the Soldier’s programming, and I have gathered the necessary intelligence to undo what has been done to Sergeant Barnes.” 

Steve realized that the voice was coming from a speaker set just inside the doorway to the bunker. “Nat, get Darcy. I’ll move Bucky.”

She nodded, approaching the woman carefully. “Darcy?”

The teary eyed woman looked up, and answered, “Yes, Black Widow?”

Nat smiled gently, doing her best to appear nonthreatening. “You can call me Natasha.”

Darcy sniffed. “Natasha.”

“Can you stand? We need to bring you inside,” Nat continued, and the woman nodded. She stood shakily, and leaned heavily on Natasha’s larger frame.

Steve picked up Bucky with the utmost care, and followed the women inside. The doors slid shut behind them, but at this point, Steve was inclined to give Zola the benefit of the doubt. From what Pierce had been saying, Zola had already more or less committed treason to HYDRA. “Lay him down,” Zola said over the speakers, and a monitor flashed to life. His face was odd looking, but recognizable.

“Zola,” Steve murmured.

“Captain Rogers, Agent Romanova, Ms. Lewis. I hate that things have turned out this way, but I do have your solution.” Zola smiled, and Steve found himself feeling a little sympathy for the scientist. That smile was full of wistfulness. “I am afraid that my efforts to rectify my wrong were discovered by a lady with a sense of humor.”

Darcy sniffled, wiping her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I originally programmed a declaration of love as the fail safe that would completely undo all of my meticulous work. She reprogrammed him so that only True Love’s Kiss would do it.”

Nat snorted, and Steve sighed. “Funny.”

“Isn’t it? She also programmed in an aversion to kissing as well as mandating that he was to wear goggles from then on. I had wondered where his mysterious visual hyperactivity had come from, but now I know,” Zola answered. “The kiss should undo his trigger words as well as the Sputnik fail safe. His memories, unfortunately, will have to return on their own, but the brain damage that inhibits them should correct itself in a few months.”

~~  
Darcy looked down at Winter, and knelt beside him. She lifted up his head, and laid her lips on his. With all of her being she willed him to wake. _Please_ , she thought, _Please wake up. Please come back to me, Winter._

She sat up slowly, tears again rolling down her cheeks. Winter’s breathing stayed even, but his eyes began to move behind his lids. They finally opened slowly, and he glanced around. “. . . Darcy?”

She cried out happily. “ _Winter!_ ”

He surged up, and pulled her into his lap. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she answered, “You came back to me.”

He pulled away, and smiled at her. Then he glanced up at the monitor. “Handler Zola?”

“You are free, Sergeant Barnes . . . Winter. Live your life with your Soulmate.”

Darcy gave the computer a hard stare. “We are not naming our first born after you.”

Zola chuckled. “I thought not. Now go. The check in for Pierce and his team is in two minutes. When they don’t hear anything, the rest of the HYDRA operatives in SHIELD will launch a ballistic missile at this instillation. You mustn’t be here for that.”

Darcy scrambled to her feet, and Winter flowed up to his. “What about you?” he asked. Cap and Natasha gave him a curious look. “Are you staying here?”

“Yes,” Zola replied. “It is past time that I finally join my Johann wherever he is.”

“You know he’s probably in hell,” Darcy stated baldly. 

“More than likely,” Zola replied, “But it is no more than the two of us deserve. I can only be glad that I have righted my greatest wrong. Blessings to you both, Darcy, Winter. And I wish you well too, Captain Rogers, Agent Romanova. I cannot forgive what you did to me and my Johann, but I can wish you happiness, Captain.”

Captain America nodded. “For what its worth, I’m sorry things happened the way they did too.”

“Your words are appreciated, Captain. Now seriously, go! Live your lives, have your children, raise your pets! Do not remember me fondly.”

Darcy couldn’t help it, she reached up and touched the monitor about where Zola’s cheek would be. “Thank you.”

Zola gave her a fond smile before winking out. The foursome made their exit quickly, and trotted to the big black SUV they had driven there. Before they left, Captain America looked back to the bunker one last time. “When he looks around hell and sees he’s alone,” Cap said, “even the Devil may cry.”

Natasha sighed heavily. “Steve, quit bastardizing Sherrilyn Kenyon quotes and get your ass in the car.”

“Quit quoting my favorite author, Steve. Get into the car, Steve. Punch Rumlow in the face, Steve.” Darcy couldn’t help but start chuckling at Cap’s – Steve’s – tirade.

“Stop being a punk, Steve,” Winter said absently as he looked out the window. Natasha had put the pedal to the metal as soon as Cap’s door was closed. They were already out on the main road, speeding as fast as they could for New York City. 

Cap turned around, and his blue eyes were alight with mischief. “It’s good to have you back.”

Winter cocked a brow, but then cocked his head. “Do I know you?”

Cap sighed, but smiled. “You’ll remember.”

At that moment, an explosion rocked the car, and Darcy couldn’t help but shriek a little. Winter’s arms came around her, and he murmured soothing words and rubbed her back. They looked out the back of the SUV to see a plume of smoke rising in the sky. “Well,” she murmured, “That’s one head of HYDRA cauterized.”

Winter looked at her fondly. “I love you,” he murmured. 

“I love you too,” she replied, laying her head on his shoulder. “I love you too.”  
~~

Winter began to remember his first life in snitches and snatches. He even began to answer to Bucky again, much to Steve’s delight. After four months of therapy and living in Avengers Tower, he even began to call Steve his best friend again. Cap had cried at that. Darcy still called him Winter, and none of the other Avengers ever even tried to call him that after he’d requested to be Bucky or James to them. Just as Jane never tried to call Darcy Snow White or Aurora. 

Tony had taken the news of what Winter had done to his parents pretty well considering. He’d brooded for a whole week before barging into the Barnes-Lewis apartment one morning to announce that Bucky was going to come in for a new arm, and he was going to accept the new arm without complaint. Winter had nodded, and didn’t even mention that maybe Tony should knock next time since they hadn’t even gotten out of bed when he’d stormed in. Not to mention the fact that he and Darcy slept nude.

After six months, the Avengers had finally liberated Loki’s Scepter from the HYDRA base that had taken custody of it after SHIELD began to root out the corruption in their ranks. Zola had helpfully transmitted a full list of HYDRA agents, and Fury had taken to cleaning out his organization with zeal. Tony had his party, even going as far as to invite World War II vets to come hang out with Steve and Winter. The two men had enjoyed that, and when the evening wound down, Thor brought out Mjolnir. When it was Bucky’s turn, he almost didn’t take it, but Darcy goaded him on. 

Thinking that he would fail just like everyone else, no one was more surprised than he was when he stood at the end of Tony’s coffee table with Thor’s hammer in his hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I hope you all enjoyed part 2! I had a lot of fun writing it. And I love redeeming villains - and I always really liked Zola. He and Schmidt had a really interesting relationship in Captain America, and I loved that it appeared that Zola was Schmidt's friend rather than just a henchman. 
> 
> But anyway, I hope you will stay tuned for the rest of the Our Hearts With Color Sing series. The next one is my beloved WinterShieldShock, and then after that I plan to do a couple of rare pairs. I'm also going to attempt my first femslash sometime down the road. Probably nothing really smutty, but I've honestly never written a female/female relationship and I do really like Natasha/Darcy and Wanda/Darcy. 
> 
> Also, I probably will bang out a couple of one shots in the Complementary Colors series. I kinda want to go back and write more with Steve and Natasha. I had way too much fun with his griping and her bossiness. 
> 
> Finally, thank you all for the kudos and comments! Half the reason this is being posted so quickly is because of all the kind words, random noises, and internal monologues left on the first chapter. Again, thank you!


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